"sex with over 13 year old girls is ok with me", says chief constable

i actually agree with the chief. It IS a very grey area. No doubt, in a perfect world, children (under 18's) would not be going around having sex....but they do. And a 17yr old boy having sex with his 15yr old girlfriend, is in NO WAY, the same as a 25yr old man having sex with a 15yr/14/13yr old.
I was reading some comments somewhere else on this, and they said that in Canada and some parts of the USA, they have a rule, where if the age gap is more than 2 or 3 years, then it is a problem.....is this true?

Originally posted by justyc
if i happen to think that an underage child should be protected by the law then why is that a problem with some members?

You are perfectly entitled to your opinion but if you wish to debate the issue in an open forum then you have to present the facts rather than misrepresent the situation. In particular:

- it is entirely unreasonable to title the thread with a direct quotation when the Chief Constable did not say those words and they do not even come close to paraphrasing his intended meaning.

- it is wholly misleading to suggest that an underage girl is not protected by the law. Sex with a minor is statutory rape and is a serious offence - the Chief Constable was not suggesting that no offence had been committed.

The Chirf Constable was simply trying to draw a distinction between the offence of statutory rape which may have a whole range of mitigating factors surrounding it and sexual offences arising from paedophilia where pre-pubescent children are knowingly preyed upon by adults. I find it hard to believe that anyone has difficulty in understanding this distinction.

Originally posted by justyc
welsh chief constable terry grange thinks its ok for men to have sex with girls (funny he doesnt mention boys there also) over the age of 13 and not be labelled pedophiles for doing so.

I'm going to play a game of semantics -- I do not think that Justyc is misinterpretting the constable.

Technically, a 'man' (by US standards) is 18. If he, an 18 year old man, has sex with a 16 year old girl.. then justyc's statement is correct -- the constable doesn't think that that's pedophilic behavior, and in some ways is justifying it as behaviors that are 'happening anyhow'.

I might be wrong -- feel free, as always, to correct me. But, I think it's a line in the sand when the tide's coming in that this constable is trying to defend..

"Girls, nine, 10 and 11 are now post-pubescent. They're wearing bras, they're having their periods. They are no longer children in his definition.

To judge by a girl's body is incorrect -- girls seem to be physically maturing faster and faster. That does not mean that they are ready for intercourse...

I might very well be alone here, but boys still had cooties until I was 17...

There's a reason that the standards are where they are... and while people may mentally mature faster than others, I do not see this as a reasonable excuse for engaging in pre-adult sex.

Official government guidance on prosecuting suggests that teenagers who have sex when one of them is below 16 should not necessary be prosecuted.

Just because kids are 'doing it anyhow' -- does that make it necessarily right? Should the standards and our definitions change? And on what grounds?

(The title may have been 'more correct' if it read "sex with 13-16 year old girls is ok with me", or better yet, "should not be illegal" -- as that is what causes prosecution. But I do not think that justyc was necessarily misinterpretting the constable's words.)

Justy,

No self-respecting adult would condone sex with children, imo. But kids (pubescent) kids having sex with kids is something that would be very hard to stop.

Without the properly instilled values (fill in your flavor), hormones will rule every time.

THAT's a fact of life.

Education, as always, is the key. A little AIDS awareness goes a long way.